The archived blog of the Project On Government Oversight (POGO).

Aug 23, 2011

North Anna Nuclear Reactors Only Designed to Withstand 5.9 - 6.1 Magnitude Earthquake

By BRYAN RAHIJA

Bob Alvarez, a Senior Scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) who with support from POGO authored a recent report on the dangers associated with how the majority of nuclear spent fuel is stored in the U.S., just sent the following in an email regarding this afternoon's earthquake felt across the East Coast:

An earthquake measuring 5.9 on the Richter scale just occurred less than a hour ago. It's epicenter was in Mineral, VA—approximately 10 miles from two nuclear power reactors at the North Anna site. According to a representative of Dominion Power, the two reactors were designed to withstand a 5.9-6.1 quake. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) ranked the North Anna Reactors as being 7th in the nation in terms of earthquake risks.

Control rods are automatically inserted to halt a reactor, if it is impacted by an earthquake. However, the reactor core still has a large amount of decay heat that requires power to remove it if there is a loss of offsite power to prevent a melt down. It is reported that the North Anna reactors were shut down and is operating with back-up diesel generators. The failure to remove reactor decay heat is what led to severe accidents at the Fukusima nuclear site on Japan. It is not clear, at this time, what damage might have been sustained at the nuclear site.

The North Anna reactors are of the Westinghouse Pressurized Water design and went on line in 1979 and 1980 respectively. Since then the reactors have generated approximately 1,200 metric tons of nuclear spent fuel containing about 228,000 curies of highly radioactive materials—among the largest concentrations of radioactivity in the United States.

Nearly 40 percent of the radioactivity in the North Anna spent fuel pools is cesium-137—a long-lived radioisotope that gives off potentially dangerous penetrating radiation and also accumulates in food over a period of centuries. The North Anna Pools hold about 15-30 times more Cs-137 than was released by the Chernobyl accident in 1986. In 2003, IPS helped lead a study warning that drainage of a pool might cause a catastrophic radiation fire, which could render an area uninhabitable greater than that created by the Chernobyl accident.

The spent fuel pools at North Anna contain 4-5 times more than their original designs intended. As in Japan, all U.S. power nuclear power plant spent fuel pools do not have steel lined, concrete barriers that cover reactor vessels to prevent the escape of radioactivity. They are not required to have back-up generators to keep used fuel rods cool, if offsite power is lost. Even though they contain these very large amount of radioactivity, spent reactor fuel pools in the U.S. are mostly contained in ordinary industrial structures designed to protect them against the elements.

Update: Bloomberg reports that the North Anna power plant has lost power.

Dominion Resources Inc. lost all offsite power at its North Anna nuclear power plant in Virginia and began using backup diesel generators after a 5.9-magnitude earthquake struck nearby.

One of the four diesel generators stopped working after startup, David McIntyre, a spokesman for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said in an e-mail today. There were no reports of damage at the plant, he said.

How interesting (and typical) that I didn't see a word from the media or any statements issued from the government regarding any possible threats from nuclear reactors that may have been affected and/or damaged.

A tragedy, any tragedy as with beauty, is in the eyes of the beholder and the proof is in the pudding. This magnitude of Earthquake would have passed, almost, un-noticed or blamed as a war between gangs and there the reason for Californians to make fun of those panic driven Yankees.
But I feel your pain. People who are driven by panic can't take it as others used to much greater and devastated than any thing the East can experience. I recall how, not too long ago, DOD was trying to film a recruiting ad and sent Air Force one for such endeavor and lo and behold, NYC went into panic mode and one fire-crack becomes an atomic bomb. As for that baloney how grave and serious the incident could have become, well, it's also another the sky is falling from the chicken littles of this "brave" nation.
As bad as the situation is today, thanks to tea partiers, republicans, this is just trivia pursuit in comparison. Imagine that Eric Cantor the neo-Nazi representative of where the earthquake happened, vowed to withhold money to the citizens unless money could be found anywhere but the richest of the rich and to think that this Nazi at heart gets elected over and over and their citzenry almost homeless. It’s like asking for more blood from a corpse. I wish I could slapped those dummies to wake them up of that masochist high.

We wouldn't have produced any significant amount of nuclear waste if we'd been allowed to use breeder reactor technology. Breeder reactors are too dangerous, so goes the mythology, so apparently nuclear waste is not. Geothermal energy is touted as "renewable". The reason the Earth's core is still molten giving us the magnetic field that protects us from ionizing solar and other space radiation -- the decay of Uranium and other fissionable elements. But uranium is bad. Everyone knows that.

In 30 years, North Anna has generated 1200 metric tons of nuclear waste, about 109 cubic meters of uranium dioxide.

Every day, a coal power plant needs about 5 1/2 train car loads of coal, or about 781 cubic meters of coal per day. Which all ends up as CO2 in the air or toxic ash that needs to be carefully disposed of.

Excellent post. Thank you. While the spent fuel ponds may not be required to have back up energy, it would be good to find out if the North Anna ponds do or do not. If not, what is the status of the ponds?

Even with an unprecedented magnitude 5.9 earthquake occurring this year, Virginia will still not have a single person killed by nuclear power, but will bury 100 coal miners this year just like they did last year and the year before that and the year before that... The irony continues unabated as the Luddites win again.